What is CVE-2017-12989?

CVE-2017-12989 is a high-severity vulnerability in Tcpdump, classified under Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition (Infinite Loop). CVSS score: 7.5/10. Published 2017-09-14.

How severe is CVE-2017-12989?

High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.5 out of 10.

Vulnerability in Tcpdump

CVE-2017-12989

The RESP parser in tcpdump before 4.9.2 could enter an infinite loop due to a bug in print-resp.c:resp_get_length().

Published 2017-09-14 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.5 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.023 (82.8th percentile), scored 2026-10-01.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 83rd percentile — 82.8% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.023 · newest: 0.023 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Tcpdump

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-835 — Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition (Infinite Loop)

References

security.gentoo.org/glsa/201709-23 (vendor-advisory)
support.apple.com/HT208221
www.debian.org/security/2017/dsa-3971 (vendor-advisory)
www.securitytracker.com/id/1039307 (vdb-entry)
www.tcpdump.org/tcpdump-changes.txt (Vendor Advisory)
github.com/the-tcpdump-group/tcpdump/commit/db24063b01cba8e9d4d88b7d8ac70c9000c… (Patch, Third Party Advisory, Issue Tracking)
access.redhat.com/errata/RHEA-2018:0705 (vendor-advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2017-12989?: CVE-2017-12989 is a high-severity vulnerability in Tcpdump, classified under Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition (Infinite Loop). CVSS score: 7.5/10. Published 2017-09-14.
How severe is CVE-2017-12989?: High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.5 out of 10.